ADVENTure – Christians get over yourself

Wow! the Macpac advertising team must have sat around for hours brainstorming – and I really hope they charged the company like a raging bull to have come up with the profoundly creative, and seasonally appropriate advertising brochure “ADVENTure sale” (above).

Is it just Christianity and its sacred seasons that is fair game for commercial exploitation? Christmas hit the shops 2 months ago! “Get your Christmas stuff into your shops now!” was the business advice in October. Is our terribly creative advertising team going to widen its advice to obvious parallels for Ramadan, Yom Kippur, ‘Id al-Fitr, and maybe struggle a bit more with Rosh Hashanah and Pesach?

If not – is Christian down-to-earthness, the ability to take a joke a positive point of difference to other world religions? Or a sign of a lack of taking our own faith seriously? We say we live in a post-Christian society, is Israel a post-Jewish society? Is there a post-Muslim society? A post-Buddhist society?

Joanne Black in this week’s Listener writes that receiving New Zealand Post’s “Christmas Card” with the greeting “Happy Holidays” was “almost enough to drive me to church”. This non-Christian argues “to remove the word “Christmas” smacks to me of being anti-Christian.” “By wishing someone Happy Holidays rather than “Merry Christmas” we are not being inclusive, but intolerant.”